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Panel begins work on proposal to create new state park at State Capitol honoring Hortmans

By Lisa Kaczke
(House Photography file photo)
(House Photography file photo)

A working group tasked with making recommendations for a proposed new state park within the Capitol Area met for the first time Wednesday.

The park would be named for the late Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were killed in June 2025.

“Speaker Hortman had a great love for the Capitol building and the Capitol campus,” House DFL Caucus Leader Zack Stephenson (DFL-Coon Rapids) told the Melissa and Mark Hortman Memorial State Park Working Group. “On long sessions, she was known to walk the grounds. If you joined her, she would share her opinions, both positive and negative, about the way the grounds were kept and what trees were there in particular. She had a very strong feeling about the trees.”

More broadly, Hortman wanted the Capitol to be accessible to the public and for people to understand and appreciate its history as much as she did. Turning the Capitol Area into a state park was her long-term goal to make it even more accessible to people, Stephenson said, and seeing that through would be a way to preserve her legacy.
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